LOS ANGELES – George Farmer was a sure thing. How sure is a matter of perspective.

But before you can understand that uncertainty and why his once-certain potential was – and continues to be – called into question, understand that failing to live up to that expectation was never an option. Farmer was a can’t-miss prospect, a 6-foot-1, 220-pound freak athlete with unparalleled speed and strength and a penchant for making defenses look like boys trying to tackle a grown man.

His star rose so fast at Serra High in Gardena that no one expected it could fade. Coaches flocked to see him run, promising future scholarship offers before he played a down of high school football. As a 14-year-old at an underclassmen combine in Los Angeles, he clocked a 4.31 in the 40-yard dash, outrunning 600 other kids. It was destiny, many thought, that this story would end in the NFL.

But over the years, the destined path of this sure thing careened off track, twisting and turning away from a future that seemed so certain to be bright, and now, a week before the NFL draft begins, all Farmer has left to do is wait and hope that that path is still within reach.

The former mega prospect-turned-USC receiver just returned from Jacksonville – his last of six visits with NFL teams – and he’s celebrating the end of that parade of interviews with a plate of barbecue and a peach smoothie from a strip-mall Hawaiian joint at the corner of Crenshaw Boulevard and West 120th Street. The draft process has been overwhelming and tiresome, with travel almost every day – to Dallas or Houston or New York or San Diego or San Francisco.

At each stop, he’s heard the same questions. What went wrong? How did he get here? Why did his path from Serra to USC to the draft diverge so far from that once-certain destiny?

With the draft this weekend, a new, uncertain path lies ahead. Pundits are split on Farmer’s draft stock – some say he’s a high-upside, late-round pick, others project him as an undrafted free agent. He says he wouldn’t mind either way. But after four years riddled with injuries and setbacks, he’ll finally know if at least one team believes, like he does, that the prospect who oozed so much promise so long ago is still the sure thing everyone promised he would be.

“I was so highly recruited coming out of high school,” Farmer says, “And going to ’SC, everyone thinks they’re heading on this path. But that didn’t happen for me, my story didn’t go that way. So I feel like I have a lot to prove.”

Before he signed with USC as a top-five recruit, one of the program’s most touted ever, it never took much for Farmer to prove himself. Since picking up Pop Warner when he was 8, Farmer was too big and too fast for his peers, so he consistently played up an age group. He learned the finer points of being a receiver on the pavement outside of his home in Hawthorne, catching passes from his father, George Sr., who played six seasons as a receiver with the Rams and Dolphins.

At Serra, Farmer cracked the lineup as a sophomore, starting alongside future USC and Bills wideout Robert Woods in a stacked receiving corps that included former Trojan Marqise Lee, now with the Jaguars, and Seahawks wideout Paul Richardson. The group was fiercely competitive in practice, regularly testing each other’s limits, each of them determined to outdo their equally talented peers.

“But Marqise, Robert, none of those guys could beat George,” says Serra coach Scott Altenberg. “He was a freak – so fast, so talented. It was just so easy for him.”

Which is one reason why he declared for the NFL draft in January, despite limited production in college and several sources – including his coaches at USC – counseling him otherwise. Farmer is aware he won’t be a high pick, but he’s fiercely confident that he’ll stick regardless. All he asks, he says, is for an opportunity to prove he belongs where his former teammates have already arrived.

“They’re not doing anything I can’t do,” Farmer says. “I know what I bring to the table.”

Farmer still measures himself in this regard, as an equal to the NFL wideouts he once ran alongside at Serra. But there’s no ignoring the reality that his four years at USC yielded just 363 yards and four touchdowns – a pittance compared to others in a stacked draft class of receivers.

It was certainly never a matter of talent. Injuries ravaged his first three seasons, matching every step forward with two equal steps back. As a freshman, he suffered a concussion in fall camp that kept him out for the start of the season and led to a short-lived switch to running back. As a sophomore, USC’s coaches switched him back to receiver, but a series of minor injuries, including a bizarre poisonous spider bite, stunted his development. As a junior, with coaches whispering about a breakout season, his knee buckled on a routine post route in practice, leaving him with a torn ACL and an entire year away from football.

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